Canada eyes huge Aussie canola crop

Australia’s “monstrous” canola harvest has Ken Ball adjusting his Canadian supply and demand numbers.

The Australian government’s new official estimate for its 2022-23 crop is a record 8.3 million tonnes, up from the December forecast of 7.3 million tonnes.

“Our (Canadian) exports are going to be well down from our earlier projections because of the monstrous Australian crop,” said the PI Financial analyst.

“We knew that number was going to go up, but I don’t think anybody thought it was going to go up by a million tonnes.”

Ball believes Australia could export 6.5 million tonnes of canola. The country’s more traditional export volumes are in the two to three million tonne range.

“That’s a huge chunk of business that they’re going to take from us,” he said.